


Like Whiskey When You Kiss Me

by DachOsmin



Category: Aquaman (2018), DC Extended Universe, DCU
Genre: Alley Sex, Awkward Flirting, Coming Out, Drunk Sex, Drunken Confessions, Gay Bar, M/M, Manhandling, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-07-27 19:51:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20051617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DachOsmin/pseuds/DachOsmin
Summary: Barry’s take is this: having a new group of super powered friends is neat and all, but it comes with a few key downsides. Namely, that being surrounded by hot, rich, successful people all day is fun until you remember that you are not in fact hot, rich, or successful.





	Like Whiskey When You Kiss Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flawsinthevoodoo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawsinthevoodoo/gifts).

Barry’s take is this: having a new group of super powered friends is neat and all, but it comes with a few key downsides. Namely, that being surrounded by hot, rich, successful people all day is fun until you remember that you are not in fact hot, rich, or successful. It doesn’t really sink in until a few weeks after the big showdown with Darkseid, but when it does it hits like a freight train.

In other words, one evening Barry wakes up from an unscheduled nap in one of Bruce’s guest rooms feeling a peculiar combination of horny and sorry for himself: the sort of feeling that calls for alcohol and lots of it.

He considers raiding Bruce’s liquor cabinet and sequestering himself in his room but that’s sad, even for him.

Julio’s it is. It’s a bar in the part of town that’s probably going to be very trendy in about five years, but is the furthest thing from it now. As bars go it is, in all honesty, a bit of a shit hole, but they have 3 dollar rail drinks on Thursdays and Barry is poor.

He squeezes himself into a pair of skinny jeans that do wonders for his ass and fishes a Star Wars tank top out of his drawer. He hesitates for a moment and then smears a hint of gold eyeliner on his lids and lines his lips with gloss, because it’s that kind of night.

He sidles out of his room and down the hallway, trying to be quiet. He thinks everyone is out- Bruce had some glamorous celebrity event to go to, Clark had some tooth-rotting date night with Lois. He doesn’t know about the others, but when he passes by, all of their rooms are dark.

He’s almost made it to the front door and freedom when someone coughs loudly.

He spins around to see Arthur fucking Curry slouched in an armchair in the corner, reading a book. He isn’t exactly sitting in the chair: one leg is slung over the armrest, another is tucked up on the seat. It’s honestly a really stupid way to sit in a chair and Barry has no idea what the point of it is, other than to look really cool. Maybe that’s the whole point; as someone that never looks cool under any circumstances Barry really wouldn’t know.

“Hey man,” Arthur says, waving his book in Barry’s direction. “Going out?”

Barry takes a half step closer and prays Arthur doesn’t notice the eyeliner. “Yeah,” he says. “Something like that.”

He watches Arthur’s eyes as they look him up and down, taking in his jeans and tank top. He resists the urge to fidget. He can’t help that he’s not a perfect beautiful god like the rest of them. So sue him.

But Arthur just raises his eyebrows. “Got a date?”

Barry has a date with self-pity, cheap alcohol, and later, his own hand. “No, just wanted to get out. Going to get a few drinks. I know a place nearby, Julio’s- my friend bartends there and it’s cheap...”

Arthur closes his book with an audible snap. "Count me in"

Barry’s brain temporarily short circuits. Arthur. With him. Just the two of them. Drinking.

It would be totally cool and all, and maybe a bit in line with the fantasies that’ve been plaguing him at night. Except that Julio’s is very much a gay bar. And, well. It’s not a talk he’s had with Arthur. Hell, it’s not a talk he’s had with any of them. He’s only just found this family and he can’t bear the thought of losing them right away.

So, options: He could turn Arthur down and say he wants to go alone. Except what a joke, because he doesn’t think he’s capable of turning Arthur down for anything.

Or he could pick a different bar to go to, one that’s not super gay. Except he already said he was going to Julio’s and besides, he doesn’t actually know any other bars in the area and if he tries to look one up on Yelp Arthur will probably notice and ask what was wrong with the first one and then he’s back where he started plus he’s drawn attention to the fact that he doesn’t want to bring Arthur to Julio’s and that’s suspicious as all get out.

The third option is to overthink the situation so much it’s too late to do anything but offer Arthur an awkwardly earnest grin and start edging for the door, praying for the sweet embrace of death. Predictably, that’s what he picks.

***

Outside the cold is blistering, the ground coated with the first thin snowfall of the season. They walk in silence; the frost of their breath is white against the black of the sky. Barry tries to focus on the sting of cold against his cheeks, the crunch of snow under his boot heels, anything but the mini freak out currently waging war inside his head.

It's fine, it's cool, he'll just not tell Arthur about the gay thing. No one needs to know. He can totally do this.

By the time they get to Julio’s he’s pretty solidly convinced that he can’t in fact do this and is just a hair shy of dying on the spot. He is going to say something- he needs to say something, anything- but then Arthur is pulling the door to the bar open for him with a mocking bow, and all he can do is sort of stumble in, heart fluttering in his chest like he’s already drunk.

When he walks in the heat hits him in the face like a furnace. The bar is moderately crowded, more than he would have expected at this hour. It’s mostly college kids and hipsters from the other side of the river with a few guys Barry recognizes mixed in.

Garth is tending bar and looks up as the door thwacks shut behind them. He smiles at Barry and then his gaze slides sideways to Arthur and his mouth falls open. Which, yeah, Barry can’t blame him for, but it’s obvious enough that he contemplates pulling out his phone and texting Garth “be cool” ten times in all caps.

Thankfully Garth picks his jaw up off the floor before they make it to the bar and busies himself unceremoniously shooing two college kids away so Arthur and Barry can sit down. He grabs Barry by the collar while Arthur goes to hang up their coats by the door and pulls him close. “Barry,” he hisses, “Who the fuck is your hot friend?”

“He’s from work,” Barry hisses back. “And he doesn’t know about the gay thing so _please be cool.”_

“Yeah sure,” Garth says vaguely. Garth’s face says he is not even considering being cool; Garth’s face says he may have forgotten the meaning of the word altogether.

“You’re the worst friend,” Barry hisses, and then Arthur is throwing himself into the open stool next to him and Garth is hopping over to the other end of the bar to assuage a pair of drunk college students pining for drinks.

“So!” Arthur booms. “Can you even drink?”

Barry bristles, because really? "Yeah, I'm 23-"

“No, I mean… can you even get drunk? With your metabolism and the…” Arthur trails off, waving his hand vaguely.

A god he may be, but Arthur fucking Curry has no sense of subtlety. Thankfully Garth is still across the bar. Barry shrugs. “Oh, um, yeah. It only works if I stay slow though. I don’t go out too often these days anyway." He doesn't add that that’s because he doesn't have the time, or the money, or the friends to drink with. He is not going to tell Arthur Curry, literal god, the sordid details of his pathetic life.

Arthur seems to divine it all anyway. “My man.” And he gives Barry a big clap on the back, startling a cough out of him and leaving a stinging in his skin. Fuck, but that shouldn’t be as hot as it is. "We just saved the world. If there’s ever a time to drink…”

Garth slides over to them right on cue, leaning towards Arthur like he wants to take a bite out of his bicep. “What will the lovely gentleman and also Barry be having tonight?

“Your cheapest rail drink,” Barry says, just as Arthur’s saying, “Your best whiskey.”

Garth completely ignores Barry in favor of Arthur. He gives what he probably thinks is a sultry wink. “Right then. Be a second.”

“Can you even pay for this?” Barry mutters as Garth climbs up onto the bar to reach the upper cabinets in a convoluted pose that shoves his ass into Arthur’s face. “Does being a merman even pay that well? Is there mermaid capitalism?”

“No, no, yes, and also I swiped Bruce’s credit card on the way out,” Arthur whispers back.

“Oh my god he’s going to skin us and make capes-“

Garth cuts him off by setting a heavy bottle down on the bar between them with a flourish. It’s got fancy foil on the label, and the letters are all old-timey. It looks egregiously expensive. “This,” he says grandly, “is a Glenfiddich 26 year single malt.”

“Hell yes,” Arthur growls. Garth and Barry watch in rapt silence as he takes the bottle in his beautiful, beautiful hands. He swipes the rough pad of his thumb over the seal. His forearms flex as he rips off the wax and opens the bottle; his eyes flutter shut as he leans forward to lick at the rim. And then he's raising the bottle, brushing the lip against his tongue before taking a sip. “Damn that’s good,” he growls, and every inch of Barry’s shell-shocked body agrees with him there. In the background Garth’s mouth is hanging open.

With a wink at Barry, Arthur is tilting the bottle back for a longer swig. His head is thrown back; the damp strands of his hair glitter under the halogen lights. Barry reflects that Arthur drinks like he's in a whiskey commercial crossed with a porno. It's not even a little bit fair and Barry can't look away.

The muscles of Arthur’s throat roll as he swallows the whiskey down. Barry's pants are getting tight. Fuck.

Arthur slams the bottle back onto the bar with relish before turning to Barry with a fierce grin on his mouth and a wild light in his eyes.

“Shots for everyone!” he roars.

Yeah, Barry isn't surviving the night.

***

The next few hours are a bit of a blur. Arthur ends up buying a king’s ransom of top shelf whiskey and sharing it with half the bar. Garth, the traitor that he is, absolutely eggs him on. When he's not cooing at Arthur's muscles or ooh-ing and aah-ing at his tattoos, he's cheerfully pulling bottles of liquor out of back cabinets, claiming special discounts for Arthur that Barry is 99 percent sure his boss doesn’t know about and would never in his right mind authorize.

Barry loses track of time, content to float along in the warmth of the liquor and Arthur’s laughter. There's a pile of empty glasses and bottles on the bar that Garth hasn't been able to keep up with. Arthur shows no sign of stopping; except for the wideness of his smiles and a slight slur on his vowels you wouldn't even know he’s been drinking. Fucker drinks like a fish.

Barry isn't going to tell Arthur that he's been surreptitiously speeding his fingers back and forth in his coat pocket to burn off the extra alcohol. But it's only the one hand: he doesn't dare to do more than that and no matter how quickly he wiggles his fingers, the swaying bar and the heat in his face present a pretty damning case: he's super drunk.

It’s the point in the night when his body starts to crave company. The alcohol makes him loose and easy; he wants to touch and be touched; he wishes more than anything he had someone to go home with.

But everyone turned his way is looking just past him, to Arthur.

The sad part is, he can’t even be mad at Arthur for cockblocking him. No one in their right mind would want to exchange awkward flirtations with Barry when they could watch Arthur fellate a whiskey bottle instead. Hell, Barry wouldn’t want to talk to Barry if Arthur was so much as smiling nearby.

He can’t help it; he sighs.

Next to him Arthur lets out a chuckle that Barry feels in his bones “You’re too tense, man. You need to get laid.”

He picks his words carefully. “I… don’t think I’m going to have a lot of luck tonight.”

Arthur lets out a thoughtful hum. “Not a lot of ladies here anyway.”

“Well,” Barry says, watching the bar lights play over the whiskey in his glass, "it_ is_ a gay bar."

It takes him a second to realize what he just said, and then it hits him like vertigo, like that sickening moment when he takes a wrong step and is just beginning to fall. God fucking damnit, what's the point of running faster than sound when his mouth is always one step ahead?

He feels a dull flush in his cheeks and a queasiness in his stomach. “They have three dollar rail drinks,” he mutters, like that explains it all, and wishes he could just sink into the floor.

He sneaks a glance at Arthur, even though a part of him doesn’t want to look. He's just found this family, and now that he knows what it tastes like to fight alongside them he doesn’t think he could survive going back out in the cold alone. If Arthur spits a slur and walks away…

But there’s no condemnation in Arthur’s eyes. “Yeah, it’s pretty obvious it’s a gay bar.”

“Really? I mean, I didn’t say anything and I guess it says so on the website but-“

“Barry,” Arthur says, mercifully shutting him up. “There are eight rainbow flags stapled to the ceiling and your friend at the bar has purple glitter all over his chest.”

Barry winces. “Garth has no taste.”

Arthur makes a tutting sound. “He turn you down, then?”

“No.” Quite the opposite; Garth had been pretty open about his interest once upon a time, but… “I don’t… with ah, normal, humans. I don’t want to hurt anyone.” He isn’t going to tell Arthur about the first time he masturbated after getting his powers, how he accidentally broke his bed frame in his excitement.

“You only fuck super-humans?” Arthur says, entirely too loudly. “You can’t have had a ton of luck with that.”

“I’ve had no luck with it,” he mutters.

“None?” Arthur lets out a gusty sigh. “Fuck, man.”

For fuck’s sake, it’s bad enough that he’s wallowing in self-pity without Arthur witnessing it. “I liked you better when you were fellating the whiskey bottle,” he says. And there his mouth goes again, saying shit his brain hadn’t signed off on. He can feel the panic lurking underneath his buzz and knows he’s going to be mortified in the morning. If he survives the night, that is.

But that’s the funny thing. Arthur doesn’t look like he wants to kill him. Instead, there’s a slow smile curving across his face. “Did you really?” Arthur purrs.

Well, there’s no safe way to answer that one. “Um?” he squeaks.

Arthur considers him with that same lazy smile. “How fast could you get us back to the manor?”

Is this a trick question? “Fast? But not like super-fast ‘cause I’m drunkish and the particles-“

And then he’s leaning closer, and his breath, heavy with the taste of whiskey, is hot against Barry’s cheek. “How fast could you get us to the alley out back?”

Barry blinks. “Fast.” Fuck the particles.

“Do it.”

It’s all a blur- fuck he really shouldn’t run when he’s drunk- but he doesn’t care, all he cares about is the way Arthur is looking at him, filthy and full of promise. He’s zigging and zagging through the bar and yeah someone’s probably going to notice but everyone’s drunk anyway and he just _doesn’t care._

He slams the back door to the alley open, and then he’s stopping, but the momentum is still carrying him forward and then Arthur is slamming him up against the brick wall so hard he whimpers from the bite of the bricks in his back. Arthur’s got him off the ground with his feet dangling in the air and his hips slotted against Arthur’s and it’s absolutely perfect.

He opens his mouth and he knows he’s about to say something dumb, but luckily Arthur shuts him up with a kiss.

Fuck, but it’s good. Arthur kisses like he fights: it’s wet and filthy and take-no-prisoners, and all Barry can do is gasp and go along with it. He feels himself arching up obscene into Arthur’s embrace. He wants Arthur’s hands on every inch of his body, raking down his chest, spreading his legs, taking him apart until he’s begging for it.

Arthur turns to kiss him on the jaw, and fuck that’s bad because now his mouth is free to babble all kinds of inane shit. “Oh my- oh my _god _Arthur fuck fuck fuck-“

Arthur chuckles darkly in his ear and dips his head down to bite at Barry’s left nipple through the fabric of his shirt. “Eager, aren’t you?” he murmurs, breath hot against Barry’s chest.

“Just- fuck- please, I need- Arthur, please-“

Arthur adjusts his arms so he’s holding Arthur up with one hand like he’s the lightest thing in the world- god, his forearms are amazing- and starts to undo Barry’s fly with his free hand.

Barry’s two remaining braincells tell him he really ought to protest. “People might see-“

“Let them see,” Arthur growls, and okay, yeah, Barry’s cool with that because Arthur’s yanking down Barry’s pants, freeing his cock and exposing his thighs to the cold night air. There’s a devilish grin on his face as he smooths the pad of his thumb down the shaft like he’s getting off on the feel of it, and Barry could just about die.

“Not fair,” he manages to gasp. “Why do you still have pants on?”

“Greedy little thing,” Arthur says, reaching down with one hand to undo his belt buckle in a practiced motion. He undoes the button of his jeans and pulls them halfway down his thighs so that his cock springs free, because apparently Arthur doesn’t wear underwear and oh, it is the most perfect of cocks. It’s long and thick and Barry wants to feel it in his ass right now. Except it is _really _big, and there’s no lube-

“Not to worry,” Arthur says, and pulls a packet of lube from his back pocket.

“Why do you even have that?” Barry babbles as Arthur tears it open with his teeth- with his teeth, _god_.

“We were going out,” Arthur says like that explains everything, and Barry really wants to live in Arthur’s world.

Arthur dribbles a generous dollop of lube on his finger and reaches down to circle the rim of Barry’s hole once, twice, three times. He’s a damn tease and he should be ashamed of himself, and Barry tells him so.

Arthur chuckles and then he’s pressing his index finger in and working it in and out. He goes too slow and it’s torture. Barry’s never doubted that Arthur is like, committed to the forces of good and all, but the pleasure he takes from watching Barry squirm and beg is pretty damn villainous.

Barry is desperate before long, a writhing mess fucking himself on Arthur’s fingers. “I can take it, I can take it,” he babbles.

“You’re going to,” Arthur says, and then he’s holding Barry up one-handed as he reaches down with his other hand to line his cock up with Barry’s hole and pushes in.

Barry realizes he’s keening as Arthur breeches him, stretching him out and lighting up his nerves. He’s always been a bit of a size queen, but he’s never had a dick like this: perfect, filling up every inch of him, touching every part of him from the inside out. When Arthur bottoms out it takes Barry a moment to remember how to breathe.

And then Arthur starts to move.

Barry’s going to be ruined for sex for the rest of his life, because nothing could ever compare to this. Arthur has endless stamina; every single thrust makes Barry’s toes curl and mouth fall open.

Arthur, god, Arthur. Arthur’s his eyes are shut and his mouth is open like all he can do is feel, and Barry knows he’s going to be imagining that look of bliss every time he touches himself for the rest of his life.

It takes an embarrassingly short amount of time for him to reach the edge. He goes utterly limp as he comes, pinned upright just by Arthur’s forearm against his chest and Arthur’s cock in his ass. Arthur fucks him through the aftershocks, his thrusts becoming more and ore erratic until he shakes apart, all the while clutching Barry in his arms like he’s something precious.

***

They lean on each other as they stumble home, stopping occasionally to kiss against street signs and under stoplights. Barry’s on cloud nine, and the high lasts until they reach the manor. That’s when the dread kicks in. Because at the end of the night, he’s still Barry, loser extraordinaire, and Arthur is still Arthur, literal god. Arthur’s had his fun and that’s going to be

When they reach the grand staircase of Bruce’s manor, Barry extricates himself from Arthur’s arms and begins to back away. “So this was great and all! I’m just going to go back to my room now and I’ll see you later, okay?”

Arthur is looking at him funny. “Well yeah, if you want. But my bed’s pretty big. Promise I won’t hog the blankets.” And he’s smiling, like it’s a genuine offer, like they aren’t from completely separate worlds.

Barry feels himself getting a bit annoyed, because it isn’t fair for the universe to dangle things he wants but can’t have right in front of his nose like this. “I mean, I bet you probably do this a lot so it’s just like another thing with you and all, but I don’t, and I don’t want to like, get ideas about you, because that would just be awkward for everyone involved,” and oh god, why is it so hard to just stop talking?

But Arthur isn’t frowning or backing away, just looking at him with a fond, if slightly exasperated, smile. “Barry,” he says once Barry finally manages to shut up. “Why do you think I came out with you tonight?”

“Uh.” Barry blinks. “You like whiskey?”

Arthur rolls his eyes. “Yes, but I also like _you.”_

Oh. Well. Unexpected, but not entirely impossible. “Do you mean you like me as a team mate, or the general idea of me, or the platonic ideal of me-“

Arthur shuts him up with another kiss.

When he pulls away Barry is a little breathless again, but he thinks he has every right to be, considering the circumstances. “Oh.”

Arthur’s eyes are warm in the dim light of the hall. “Come. Sleep. We can talk in the morning.”

So Barry goes.


End file.
